


Falling

by AstridContraMundum



Series: Ere I turn away . . . [1]
Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Concert dates, Could be more if you want it to be, M/M, Morse calling someone by their first name, Quiet little missing moment, Takes place after HOME, That's a heap of emotion . . . for Morse, Work friends become real friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-10-24 06:17:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20701319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstridContraMundum/pseuds/AstridContraMundum
Summary: Doubtless, Morse hadn't had those stitches seen to.Max stops by the Witney section housing to pay Morse a visit.





	Falling

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first attempt at something that isn't an AU. I feel like I'm jumping into a pool in April! 
> 
> Here it goes..... :0)

Max made his way down the narrow corridor of the section housing of Witney Station, wondering how Morse was managing in such a place—a place that presented fresh assaults upon the senses at every turn.

The entire building seemed to ring and shake with shouts and ribald laughter, and the air was heavy with the smell of sweat-stained shirts and damp wool socks.

In contrast to the pristine silences of the January day that glowed white outside the frosted windows, the section housing was overheated and overcrowded—and, indeed, Max had to smash his shoulder against the wall to avoid a collision with a lanky young man wearing only a towel around his waist, striding down the hall with as much swagger as a matador.

Max’s career as a pathologist had rather toughened him up to disquieting sights and smells .... but trying to imagine Morse in such a place was a bit like trying to imagine a fir tree, hushed and inviolate, in the center of one of the most congested roundabouts in London.

Finally, Max found it, at the end of the hall—a door with a small bit of cardboard inserted into the plate at the side, reading: _Morse_, _E_. 

Through the door, he could hear the sound of an opera aria wailing plaintively above the banging and hiss of the radiators.

He knocked upon it smartly, and heard, then, a reluctant shuffle and a click. And then the aria was gone, replaced by the sound of footfalls.

The door opened a crack, revealing Morse, looking far more pale and worn than Max had expected. A wave of expressions flickered over his face like candlelight, running the gamut from surprise and welcome to uncertainty and sheepishness. 

From this last, Max knew at once that he had been right: doubtless, the man hadn't had his gunshot wound tended to properly since last they met. 

“Morse,” Max said. 

“Doctor,” he replied. 

They stood there for a moment, as if in a tableau of awkwardness, until Morse opened the door further, beckoning him inside.

“I . . I didn’t expect you,” Morse said, at last. “How are you?”

“Well enough. I was in the area, and so I thought I’d stop by to see how my stitch work is holding up.”

Morse grimaced as though he expected as much.

And then, because that sounded a bit _too_ professional, a bit _too_ to the point, for one looking so forlorn in the window’s weak winter light, Max added, gently,

“And to bear my condolences. I was sorry to hear about your father.” 

“Oh,” Morse said. “Well. It wasn’t unexpected. His heart, you know. He suffered for years with angina.”

He said the words without sorrow, without lament. But there was something mournful about him, nonetheless. Max was accustomed to seeing Morse stalking about like a cat around a crime scene, pawing through books and papers, his blue eyes bright and sharp.

But today, there was something about him faded, blurred around the edges.

It was as if all the light had gone out of him. 

Morse motioned for Max to have a seat in a chair before a small desk, which stood directly under the window.

It was the perfect place to sit and look out, to pretend that one was somewhere else.

Indeed, it the only place _to_ sit, other than the bed, where Morse was easing himself down, slowly—and Max was quick to note how he winced a bit as he did so.

“Sorry, about . . . . sorry about the place,” Morse murmured, with a wave of his hand.

The 'place,' in short, was an absolute tip—papers and records and water glasses covering every flat surface, a burgundy jumper strewn over the back of the chair.

The loss of a father can be disorienting, Max knew. He had worked with Morse for a year, but he realized then that he knew nothing about Morse’s family; he didn’t know if he had older siblings, aunts and uncles, with whom to share the burden of it.

“Mmmmmm,” Max said. “I suppose you’ve been busy. What with the arrangements. And with helping your mother through this difficult time.”

Morse flinched slightly at that, leaving Max to worry that he had somehow said the wrong thing.

“Oh,” he said, reading, no doubt, the falter in Max’s expression. “It’s just. . . My mother. She ... She died. When I was young. So it’s just my stepmother and my sister. Well. Half-sister.”

  
“Ah,” Max said, softly. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right,” Morse said. “You wouldn’t have known. And, anyway, it was a long time ago now.”

For a moment, a silence fell between them, but it was a comfortable one, much less awkward than the one that had transpired at the door.

“How’s it healing then?” Max asked, bracingly. “Did you have it looked at, as I directed? Or has my running repair been seeing you through all of this time?”

“Well, there was so much to do, you see,” Morse said. “Like you said.”

“Mmmmm,” Max said.

Max couldn’t help but wonder about Morse’s relationship with his stepmother; he certainly had a careworn look. He couldn’t help but conjecture if it was prolonged proximity to her as much as his father’s death that had Morse looking so thoroughly threadbare.

“Well. Let’s see the worst, shall we?”

Morse untucked his shirt and then rolled up his vest, hesitating for a moment before he undid his belt, casting Max an uncertain look as he did so.

Max could have kicked himself; he hadn’t considered how low on his hip Morse’s wound was placed; Morse certainly must have felt awkward, even vulnerable, perhaps, disrobing thus in his bedroom, rather than on the clinical and impersonal mortuary slab, where Max typically tended to Morse’s injuries.

And, of course, when Max had stitched Morse up, Morse had been in the first throes of shock and pain, sprawled out on Mrs. Coke-Norris’ floor, and hence, beyond caring about such things as modesty.

Morse began to roll down his trousers from the waist. Max looked aside, averting his eyes, giving the fellow a modicum of privacy.

And, as he did so, his eyes fell upon a pile of musical scores at the foot of the bed.

“Still singing with TOSCA, are you?” he asked.

Best to keep up the flow of conversation, keep the situation light, so Morse would feel more at ease.

“No,” Morse said. “I mean. I am. But I haven’t been much to practice lately.”

Max turned back to him, then, once Morse had pulled his clothing away from the wound, making certain to keep his face professional and impassive. As if he had seen it all before.

Which, of course, he had.

“It does hurt quite a bit,” Morse conceded. And then, seeing Max frown, he hastened to add, “Thursday made . . . I mean . . . _I _made an appointment at the Radcliffe. It’s in a week.”

So, Thursday was keeping an eye, was he? So much the better.

“That’s fine, then,” Max sighed. “Although, truthfully, you should have gone a bit earlier. My concern is that you might be left with a bit of a limp, when you’re older.”

Morse shrugged, as if such a far-off time held little interest to him.

“Why?” Morse said. “I’m sure they’ll hold fine, the stitches.”

“Oh?” Max laughed. “Are you a doctor, then? What makes you so certain?”

Morse looked at him, confused. “Because _you_ did them,” he said, simply.

Max felt himself swallow at the words.

He had done as best he could, and it was true—Morse’s hip would heal.

It was the rest of him, Max was worried about.

Something about Morse seemed lost, as if some piece was missing. Of course, the man had lost his father, been shot on duty, missed his sergeant’s, and now might be the only source of support for a stepmother and sister.

It was as if all the light had gone out of him.

No.

It was as if all the music had gone out of him.

“Well, Morse,” he said. “My prescription is to continue to go easy. And for god’s sakes, keep that appointment . . . . and I think you should consider going to choir practice, as well.”

Morse grimaced with distaste. "I don't know. I just don't want to, especially." 

“Whyever not?" Max asked. "It’s in times like these that you should cling to the things that you love. And _‘music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything.’”_

Morse smiled, wanly. “A wise man once told me something of that sort,” he said.

“Your father?” Max asked, gently.

Morse’s face fell, as if he were astounded by the idea that his father might say such a thing.

So. Perhaps he was mourning not the loss of his father, but the loss of what had never been.

“No, it was Thursday. After the Gull case,” he said.

“Ah,” Max said. “Well, he’s right. And besides that, ‘_Who hears music, feels his solitude peopled at once_.’”

Inwardly, Max winced. Could he think of nothing else to say?

There are more things in heaven and earth, after all, Horatio, than merely dropping quotes of Plato and Robert Browning to fill the gaps in a conversation.

“I suppose,” Morse said, and there was a glimmer, suddenly, in his eyes, a spark of summer sky in the frost-winter blue.

“Although, wouldn’t _people_ people it better?” he asked.

“Well, of course there will be _people_ at the concert, Morse. That’s a bit of the point. Your fellow choir members. The audience. It would be good for you, to get out and about. So long as you aren't over-exerting yourself, physically." 

“Usually, I’m watching only the conductor," Morse said. "And the audience is only a sea of faces. I mean, there’s _people_ and there's having someone . . . . someone there that you_ know_.”

For a moment, Morse looked at him, and Max felt completely undone; there was something new there in the depths of those eyes, eyes which seemed all the bluer and wider, sitting, as they were, almost knee to knee.

There was something different there. A longing. A need.

But for what? A friend? For someone, anyone, simply to be there?

But what exactly he wanted, Morse seemed unable to say. For although there was something bold in his look, there was something furtive there, too.

This is as close to the edge as I can get, his eyes seemed to say.

You will have to be the one to take one step closer. 

But, please. Take it. 

“Well, that can be arranged, if I’ll do,” Max said, airily.

He looked at the date on the music score, scrawled across the top of the page. “The twenty-seventh, is it? I’ve nothing else on that evening. I’d be happy to attend the performance.”

“We can get a pint, afterwards,” Morse offered, at once. 

“I'll plan on it, then," Max agreed. "In the meanwhile, you plan on keeping your appointment next week.”

And Max was rewarded with a look of wry amusement, with that quirk of a smile.

“Yes, doctor,” Morse said, all contrition and cooperation now, as he went to roll up his trousers. 

“Take care in the meantime, Morse,” Max said, rising from the chair to go, again all business. “I'll see you soon.”

“Thank you, Max,” Morse said, as Max softly closed the door behind him.

It wasn't until he had gotten out into the car park, out into the spiraling snow, that it fully registered. 

"_Thank you, Max."_

Max.

Max stood for a moment beside his Morris, looking up into the white and brightening sky. 

It seemed odd that, amidst the heaviness of the clouds, he should feel so unmistakably light, as if something long held dormant, deep within his chest, was stirring, rising, while all the while around him, the wild and tumbling snow was falling. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
